by J. E. Gurley
Watching the others in action, Talent began to have doubts about his reason for being there. Walker had suggested he would be a valuable asset, but he was not sure what his contribution to the group would be. He could shoot well enough, but he didn’t have the training or team experience the S.E.A.L.S and Spec Ops did. His biggest fear was that he would become a liability. To counter that, he decided to follow the fire team’s lead and do what they did when they did it. He hoped that would be enough.
His real motivation for coming was more personal than altruistic. He wanted to strike a blow at the Kaiju. The image of the thousands of passengers on the Radiant Princess was never far from his mind. Their nameless faces would suddenly burst from his memory like a silent explosion, burning a hole in his brain. Faces he had not noticed in his private world aboard ship appeared in the minutest detail. He wondered if they were real or if his imagination provided the details much as a tombstone marks a grave as a reminder. He was thankful they were silent images. Sometimes at night, the nightmares were not.
He had never had trouble sleeping. Being active all day provided a natural sleep inducement. He seldom had nightmares, and they vanished with the rising sun. His dreams were the normal women, weapons, and wealth fantasies. That was before the Kaiju, before the Radiant Princess. Killing Wasps or Squid would never dispel the nightmares. Only striking at the heart of the problem, the Kaiju, would. Since he could not take the fight to the aliens themselves, helping to stop the Kaiju would be the next best thing.
“The nearest entrance is fifty yards ahead,” McGregor advised. “I suggest we go directly to the blood-heat exchange pit to place the bombs.”
“Negative. We’ll deliver one bomb each to two of the closest hatcheries. Large arteries flow through them to feed the nursery cells. They’re close to the surface and easily exposed. The bombs will be more effective and easier to deliver.”
McGregor was not happy with Walker’s decision and allowed his ire to surface. His eyes were cold and dark in the wash of Walker’s flashlight. “The plan the Joint Chiefs approved called for the blood heat exchange as our primary target. Any change of plan should go through them.”
“We don’t have time for a conference call. The plan was based on old Intel. This Kaiju is more dangerous.”
“Afraid, Major?”
“Captain, I haven’t been afraid of anything since my high school prom. I was the only black kid in my school with a lousy sense of rhythm. It was my first and only date with Daisha Harper. I got over it.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” McGregor insisted. “My men are ready to do this. This isn’t our first dance.”
“I’ve seen your men in action, Captain, and I concur. Their training was excellent, but this has nothing to do with their ability or their readiness. The aliens modified this Kaiju from data the other Kaiju relayed before Commander Langston took out the transmitter; the introduction of the Squid and Fleas tells us that. They will have reinforced the obvious weak points and designed other safeguards. The deeper we go, the more resistance we’ll face. I’ve seen the Kaiju’s defense mechanisms in action. They’re formidable, not the mindless, uncontrolled creatures your team dealt with in Kaiju Girra. Prolonged exposure inside the Kaiju lowers our chances of a successful delivery of the K-2 to the assigned location.”
“So now you’re concerned for the safety of my men.”
Walker stopped so suddenly Talent almost slammed into him. “No, Captain. We’re all expendable if the mission calls for it, but I won’t waste anyone’s life needlessly. While we’re descending the shaft, we’ll have to split into three separate groups – one at the top, one at the bottom, and those descending. That divides and weakens our firepower. The passages to the blood-heat exchange pit are narrow. It’s a choke point. That limits the number of weapons we can bring to bear at any one time.”
“Why didn’t you bring up any of this earlier? And why did you bring him?”
To indicate Talent, McGregor pointed the barrel of his weapon at him, deliberately shining the light in his eyes. Talent shut his eyes and blocked the light with his hand. He had grown weary of the captain’s resentment of both him and Walker. “Captain,” he warned, “if you point that weapon in my direction again, I’m going to shoot you.”
McGregor bridled at Talent’s threat, but Walker stepped between them before the confrontation came to blows.
“I didn’t bring it up because I wasn’t informed of the nature of the weapon we were delivering. I assumed it would be a small tactical nuke, more effective deeper inside the creature. The object is to expose the K-2 nanites to the creature’s flesh and blood. Both are abundant in the hatchery. One reason I asked Talent to join us is that we could use an extra weapon. The other reason is not in your need to know.”
“Somebody better decide something fast,” Costas yelled as he came running up from behind them. “I think we’ve got company.”
The passageway was just wide enough for two men to walk abreast without scraping their shoulders and about seven feet high. There was no place to hide, nothing to use for cover. Loud hisses and the sounds of clawed feet scrambling on the hard ebony armor echoed down the tunnel.
“Wasps,” McGregor growled at Walker, as if he had conjured them to defuse their confrontation.
“Two down, two up,” Walker ordered.
Costas and Hightower turned and knelt. Walker and McGregor stood shoulder-to-shoulder slightly behind them, their weapons aimed over their heads. Costas’ M107 .50 caliber and Hightower’s M134 minigun made excellent first line weapons. Walker’s SCAR and McGregor’s MP5 could deliver concentrated firepower as well. Talent stood behind Walker, while Wiggins, Rhoades, and Perez faced the other direction covering their backs. Talent stood in the middle of the group, his finger lightly caressing the trigger of his MP5. He hoped the new Kaiju armor-penetrating bullets worked as well as promised.
The first Wasp appeared moments later. It barely fit inside the tunnel, even with its wings folded against its back, but framed by the black walls and illuminated by the multiple flashlight beams, it looked every bit the vicious killing machine he knew it was. Its stinger was useless in the narrow space, but its mouth and finely honed claws at the end of its forelimbs were just as deadly.
The roar of the minigun was deafening in the confined space. The creature’s head almost disintegrated as the stream of bullets pierced ebony armor and dug out chunks of flesh. Yellow blood splattered the walls, ceiling, and floor of the tunnel. The first creature had no sooner struck the floor than the one behind it began ripping it apart to get past it. Slippery with alien entrails and blood, it looked as if the tunnel was giving birth to the creature. The second Wasp struck at them with even more ferocity than the first, its sense of hive defense heightened by the dead Wasp’s pheromones. This time, all four men on the front line opened fire. Its fate was similar to the first creature only noisier.
Walker used the time it would take the Wasps to rip through the corpse barricade to good advantage. He ushered the team down the corridor toward the first hatchery at a run. When they reached the entrance, Wiggins and Rhoades automatically took up positions on either side, while the others rushed inside.
“Well, this is friggin’ different,” Costas growled, coming to a sudden stop just inside the chamber.
The hatchery, an enormous cavity eighty feet in diameter and a hundred feet high, resembled a fairyland cavern. Ten rows of shallow recesses in the irregularly shaped walls circled the chamber, rising tier after tier to the ceiling. The lower tier consisted of fifty smaller recesses. Each was less than four feet square. The uppermost tier’s twenty-five cavities were twice as large, large enough to contain fully developed Wasps. Opaque crystalline lids covered each of the over a thousand nursery cells, glowing with its own internal light. The kaleidoscopic colors filling the chamber ranged from deep crimson to burnt-orange.
“It’s almost beautiful,” Perez commented.
Talent agreed, except he knew e
ach cell contained creatures bent on killing humans. The chamber was no simple incubator. It was a living uterus. Each row migrated upwards as the creature within matured; the cell around it expanding to accommodate its growth, until it reached the top tier, and a fully developed adult creature emerged to join the ranks of killers protecting the Kaiju.
“It would be if there weren’t hundreds more of these nurseries in the Kaiju,” Talent replied.
The floor of the chamber pulsed with the Kaiju’s powerful heartbeat, like the pumps of a massive water treatment facility, throbbing as blood flowed to the nursery cells to nourish the monsters growing inside. The strangely repulsive vibration in his legs reminded Talent that he was inside a living creature, albeit one comprised of manufactured parts, a gigantic alien cyborg.
However, it was not the display of colorful crystal nursery cells that had elicited Costa’s surprised response; it was the horde of Fleas tending to the creatures ensconced in the bottom three tiers. The nursery cell lids were open, revealing pale, shapeless, wriggling forms within cocooned in a web of black tendrils and yellow fluid. The Fleas faced outward, excreting thick, black slurry from their rear ends into the bottom of each cell. As they moved away, the lids closed.
“My God! Is that liquid armor?” Perez asked in awe.
“They shit armor,” Costas roared, and then raised his weapon and pulled the trigger.
The Fleas were intent on their nursery duties. The first few died quickly, but within seconds, they became aware of the human presence and entered attack mode. They were smaller and more agile than Wasps, hopping so quickly it was difficult to aim at them. Talent gave up trying to target a single creature and simply fired into the largest groups, taking no small measure of sadistic pleasure in watching the Fleas’ bodies explode from his gunfire.
“Conserve your special ammo,” Walker advised over the headset. “Switch to regular rounds in order, rear rank first. Eliminate the Fleas, and we’ll place the K-2 drums inside the cells. The nanites will have direct exposure to the creature’s blood supply.”
His voice was barely distinguishable over the din, but there was a brief pause while team members took turns switching clips, and then the slaughter resumed. Anything further he had to say was lost in the clamor of weapons fire. Coordinating an effective defense strategy by vocal commands was impossible. Each soldier knew his job and assumed his assigned position, leaving Talent on his own. That suited him. He had no formal training. He fought on instinct, killing the nearest creatures first, but visually monitoring the others as they threatened fellow team members. It was eight private wars intersecting one another. Talent cleared his mind of all thoughts except killing Fleas.
Costas swatted one Flea that drew too close with the butt of his weapon and crushed it beneath his boot. He grimaced and wiped the gooey mess from the heel of his boot on the chamber floor.
The hail of bullets slowly began to turn the tide in their favor. Less than a score of the Fleas remained, enough to be an irritant like their terrestrial namesakes, but too few to breach the wall of bullets. Talent was beginning to think it would be a simple in and out mission – home by lunch. He should have known better. The upper tier cells opened, releasing twenty-five mature Wasps. They perched on the edge of their cells preening their new wings for the two minutes it took pumped blood to unfurl them fully.
Talent expanded his battle consciousness to include the new threat. In between firing into the diminishing number of attacking Fleas, the group managed to kill two or three Wasps, but the Fleas’ persistence made ignoring them impossible. Just as the first group of emerging Wasps spread their new wings and took to the air, the lids on the tier below them opened, revealing another twenty-five Wasps. These did not wait on their immature wings to expand, intent instead on scrambling down the wall to join the fray. Things escalated quickly. Even Talent began to doubt Walker’s wisdom in choosing the hatchery as a target. He switched out his empty clip with one containing the Kaiju armor-piercing rounds for the Wasps.
As if things were not bad enough already, the staccato rattle of Sergeant Rhoades’ MK-46 SAW erupted from outside the chamber. Seconds later, both Rhoades and Wiggins backed into the chamber directing their fire out into the corridor. The new foe was not Wasps or Fleas. Writhing tentacles danced through the air, followed by a familiar grayish smooth body. Squid, Talent gasped silently. Of all the Kaiju creatures, he hated Squid the most.
The Kaiju-piercing rounds riddled the first few Squid with ease. Harder to kill than Wasps because of their thickened skeletons over vital organs, they still could not withstand a concentrated assault. Rhoades and Wiggins stood their ground. Talent was closest to them and turned his attention on the Squid. Unlike Wasps or Fleas, Squid were more circumspect in their tactics. They were fearless in their assault but less ready to spend their lives needlessly. As soon as a Squid died under the hail of weapons fire, another Squid used a pair of tentacles to hold the dead body erect in front of it. The Squids’ long tentacles could then strike without warning from behind their flesh and blood shield. It was an effective ploy, forcing the fire team to waste precious ammunition.
The Squid, using their shields, edged closer. One twenty-foot-long tentacle whipped out, striking Sergeant Rhoades in the top of his head, cleaving both his helmet and his skull as easily as slicing a melon. He died instantly, but his death was not the end of the tragedy. Talent watched in mute horror as the lifeless sergeant slowly toppled to the ground, his dead finger welded to the trigger of the MK 46 SAW in a spasm of dying nerves and muscles.
One stray bullet tore through Wiggins’ side. The stunned private lowered his weapon to press his hand over the wound gushing blood down his side. It was an instinctive move but it proved fatal. That single moment was all the Squid needed. They instantly surrounded the two men, shredding their bodies with the metal blades embedded in their tentacles. The black drum strapped to Wiggins’ back broke free and rolled across the chamber floor toward Talent, coming to rest against the mutilated corpse of a Flea halfway between him and the line of Squid. One Squid puffed out the flaps on the side of its head, revealing deep red gills, and began emitting a series of sharp hoots. A second Squid rose to its full height on its extended tentacles and scampered after the drum. Talent emptied his MP5 into the Squid’s chest, or the spot where he hoped its heart was located. It reeled, teetering on its tentacles like a drunken man on stilts, but continued toward the drum. Talent backed up a few paces up to reload.
Hightower had witnessed his comrades’ deaths. Enraged, he leveled the minigun at the Squid’s tentacles, pressed the trigger, and held it down. The lethal spray of Kaiju-piercing bullets dropped the Squid like kicking a man’s legs from under him. It fell hard but struggled to raise itself on the shattered stubs of its tentacles, intent on recovering the drum. Hightower’s second burst tore it almost in half. Slimy alien organs, most of them unrecognizable, spilled across the floor of the chamber. He then turned the weapon on the Squid’s brethren, ripping holes in the dead Squid they used as shields, exposing the creatures beyond. He unleashed a stream of obscenities at them and laughed maniacally as bullets amputated tentacles and punched holes in flesh.
A few of Hightower’s rounds pierced the black drum. Talent tensed, waiting for it to explode, grateful when it did not. Hightower’s intervention gave Talent time to place more distance between himself and the Squid. He slapped in a fresh ammo clip and rushed to retrieve the loose drum. To his dismay, a Wasp swooped down from high above him and grabbed the drum in its forelimbs. Thick, black liquid dripped from the holes Hightower had made in it. He fired a burst into the Wasp’s belly, killing it instantly, but it and the drum crashed to the ground beyond the wall of attacking Squid.
Walker had also witnessed the deaths of the two men and the loss of the K-2 bomb, but he had no time to lament their passing or evaluate the halving of their nanite weapons. He ducked a Wasp diving at him and loosed a short burst into its head. The bullets tore through the creature’s
mouth and into its brain. A geyser of yellow ichor sprayed him with sticky goo as it tumbled overhead in a death dive into one of the nursery cells, springing open the lid and exposing the immature creature inside. A second burst from Walker’s weapon turned the juvenile into pulp.
More Squid hoots filled the chamber. The flying Wasps abandoned their attack on the fire team to form a living wall in front of the Squid, while the remaining Fleas pressed the attack from that direction, advancing quickly across the chamber, driving him and the others away from the hatchery and back toward the entrance and the waiting Squid.
The fire team was now trapped between Wasps and Squid and rapidly running out of ammunitions. They were also running out of options. The mission was in danger of ending before it had started. Talent glanced at Walker. He could see Walker’s mind working furiously to extricate them from their predicament. Suddenly, Walker focused his attention on a narrow section of the wall between banks of nursery cells and began firing his weapon at the wall. Chips of black armor splintered away, revealing crimson flesh beneath it. Guessing his intention, Talent aimed his HP5 at the same spot and opened fire.
When a sizable expanse of alien flesh was exposed, Walker pointed to the M-23 grenade launcher on Talent’s shoulder. Talent nodded. He had never exploded a grenade in a confined space, even one the as large as an Olympic-sized swimming pool, but death by flying shrapnel seemed infinitely preferable to being torn to pieces. He controlled his fear, ignoring the Squid rushing across the chamber toward him. He let his MP5 dangle from its strap, swung the grenade launcher into position, and clicked off the safety.
His first round was an M40 fragmentary grenade. He had not had time to practice with the weapon’s attached M2A1 reflex sight. He trusted to his luck, estimated the distance, and fired from the hip. The grenade shot through the air in a perfect arc. For a brief moment, it looked as if an alert Wasp would intercept it, but to his immense relief, the projectile sailed between the Wasps legs and struck the exposed section of wall dead center. The explosion blew away a chunk of the ebony wall and crimson flesh beneath it, revealing a dark opening beyond. The intervening swarm of Wasps absorbed the brunt of the explosion and the flying shrapnel. Walker pushed his way through the few remaining Fleas, kicking them aside with his feet as he fired into them. Talent followed close on his heels. He had no idea where the dark, uninviting opening led, but it was an exit from the chamber of death.